Re: OT: META: messages (was: Re: Religious Development WAS: Re: OT: Socialism (WAS: Re: Saving endangered langs (was Re: Extrapolating languages))

On Tuesday, December 23, 2003, at 09:46  AM, Tristan McLeay wrote:
> On Tue, 23 Dec 2003, Steg Belsky wrote:
>> On Tuesday, December 23, 2003, at 02:45  AM, Sylvia Sotomayor wrote:
>>> Mark J. Reed wrote:
>>>> It's hard to imagine what sort of path the older religions might
>>>> have
>>>> taken if left to grow across a planet without
>>>> those major influences.  Would some other monotheistic,
>>>> prophet-centric
>>>> religion have cropped up, human nature being what it is?  Is there a
>>>> natural
>>>> point of cultural development at which something of the sort is
>>>> practically
>>>> inevitable?  Or would we have a planetful of people still following
>>>> the nature-religions; global not-so-neo Paganism?
>>>> -Mark
>>>
>>> http://www.partiallyclips.com/pages/archive.php?id=1083&b=1&c=
>>> --
>>> Sylvia Sotomayor
>>
>> That's hilarious!
>> But for some reason i can't find Mark's original message to which
>> Sylvia responded... did i just miss it in going through my emails, or
>> did other people miss it too?
>
> I got it. You may have skipped it because it was one titled OT:
> Socialism
> and began (IIRC) on that topic, though the majority wasn't. OTOH, I've
> been getting lots of messages out of order these last few days (and I
> mean
> very out of order, a reply can come for a message I don't see till the
> next day).
> (Lots of tangents, this thread :)
> --
> Tristan
Nope.... no i'm sure i never got it, after going to the archives and
reading it.  Ohwell.

Anyway, since the original message had some kind of question about
conculture holidays, here i'll repost something i sent to ConCulture
last Rokbeigalmki New Year, about half a year ago:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Since sunrise this morning [June 22, 2003] it's been the Rokbeigalmki
New Year, |^Dzuwaurg^Fal^Dari.hlao^Semoz-a| (Dzu"Fa"Ri for short), the
'Festival of the Widening of the Circle of the Sun'.

  Dzu"Fa"Ri occurs on the day after the Southern Hemisphere Winter
Solstice, and it's also the birthday of my prototypical Rokbeigalmkidh,
Stíígiyus, my main character on ElendorMUSH (named Stygius there).
Actually, on ElendorMUSH the IC (In Character) calendrical system which
is about 3 times faster than RL, it just passed Dzu"Fa"Ri a few days
ago.

  And now it's Dzu"Fa"Ri here in RL, where it is now Year 7. As i've
mentioned previously a few times, the year-numbering i use *here* is
|nga'aole-ad-a tza'lesna-a rokbeigalmki-a| 'from the creation of the
Rokbeigalmki language', and has no connection to the real year-count
they'd be using over *there* in Tolkien's World.

This year is somewhat interesting in that it's got 14 months. Since
Rokbeigalmki months are lunar and years are solar, the lunar cycle
which includes Dzu"Fa"Ri is split up into two abnormal months, the last
month of the year (Jalág) before New Years Day and the first of the new
year (Ghalúb) afterwards. The Ghalúb we are in now (Dzu"Fa"Ri is the
1st day of Ghalúb) is only about a week long, so when you count the
months until next Dzu"Fa"Ri you find that there are 14 months. The
Jalág at the end of this year will only be 2 or 3 days long, and the
full-length month preceding it, which should have been Jalág, will
therefore be the intercalated month Yápleg.

As Dzu"Fa"Ri approached on Elendor, i began to think about how the
Rokbeigalm celebrate it. I already knew that they generally stay up all
night partying and waiting for the sunrise, but i had no idea what they
actually do, ritually, at sunrise, except that it involves the 5 Life
Elements (water, fire, blood, wood, earth).

  Then i began to realize that (while i may find it icky) they *ingest*
the elements in order to strengthen their own life energies for the
coming year.

water (dwi) = pretty simple... they just drink a cup of water

fire (zek) = take a stick with a small flame at one end, put out the
flame with their saliva by putting it in their mouth

blood (reiyug) = they take the animals that will be eaten at the feast,
slaughter them and collect the blood which then gets distributed for
everyone to drink some of

wood (aurez) = a plant is eaten

earth (amal) = a small quantity of dirt, clay, silt, or other
very-fine-grained rock particles is eaten

At the feast following this ritual, the roasted (>fire) animals
(>blood) that they got the blood from are eaten, as well as a vegetable
stew. The stew is made of water (>water), food plants and herbs
(>wood), and salt (>earth).

For the rest of the day people have fun and party some more, play
games, eat non-ritual food, and stuff like that.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

During the night before the sunrise of New Years Day, they read,
recite, and/or re-enact their legends, allegories, and history texts,
in order to have a conscious feel of the flow of time.  It's also good
for staying awake ;) .

The Rokbeigalm also celebrate the New Moon each month, but the ceremony
isn't as elaborate.  They probably just have a similar semi-ritual
feast as the post-ritual one from Dzu"Fa"Ri.


-Stephen (Steg)
  "Presumably, Sauron gave up carnal pleasures when he became an
all-seeing eye at the top of a tower, but it’s hard to say for certain.
Maybe he gets a kick out of the all-seeing bit."
      ~ alex ross, The New Yorker

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